Megumi (愛)
by 46neko
Summary: People think that the kanji on Gaara's forehead is love. Well, they're wrong. It's my name.
1. Chapter 1

**First OC fanfic! If you're wondering about the summary, the kanji 愛 in Japanese can be read as _ai_, meaning love, or _megumi_, which is a name. Ah, so many Japanese puns! My English teacher would be proud.**

**Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

I stare up at the clouds that sway as I pump my legs back and forth on the Academy swing. I can hear the sound of kids yelling as they chase each other all over the playground. I try to ignore them, but my heart still feels as heavy as a rock.

_"Can I play?" a little girl with short green hair rushed up to a group of girls and asked. But when they saw her, they all ran away. "Ew, it's that Megumi girl! Stay away from us: we don't want to get sick!"_

I sigh. I've been ill ever since I was born. I'm not contagious, but everybody's still afraid of getting my disease. I can understand that.

Because I only have a few years left to live.

Suddenly, I hear the playful yelling turn into terrified screaming. I glance up to see the group of girls running away from a red-haired boy, who is holding a ball in his hands. At his feet is a pile of sand. As I look at him, wondering why everyone seems to be scared of him, he catches my gaze. We both stare at each other for a few moments, neither one of us moving. I wonder why he isn't running away from me like everyone else.

"Why aren't you running away from me?" I'm surprised to hear the boy echo my own thoughts.

"Why would I? Are you sick?" I ask him.

"Um… sort of," the boy shrugs uncomfortably.

"Are you contagious?"

"No," he answers, more confidently this time.

"Neither am I!" I reply. "So why does everyone keep running away from us?"

The boy doesn't answer. He doesn't know either.

"Nee, what's your name?" I ask him.

"G-Gaara," he manages to stutter out.

"Oh. That's a cool name!" I grin at him. He tentatively smiles back. "What's yours?"

"Megumi! Megumi Ariyama!" I reply. "Nee, wanna be friends, Gaara-kun?"

Gaara's eyes widen. "R-really?"

"Of course!" I exclaim. He grins at me, and the hurt disappears from his eyes. "Okay! Forever?"

"Forever!" I return his smile.

* * *

"Kāchan, kāchan! Guess what?" I jump up and down in front of my mom.

"What is it, Gumi-chan?" she turns away from cutting vegetables to ask me.

"I made my first friend today! His name's Gaara!" I tell her enthusiastically. Her eyebrows knit together at first, and I'm worried for a second that I made her mad somehow, but then she smiles at me. "I'm happy for you, Gumi-chan," she says. I grin back. "I'm happy, too!"

"That's all I need to hear," Kāchan replies, before going to back to making dinner for Tōsan and me.

I love my family, but I'm also really happy that I made a friend too.

* * *

The next day, Gaara is waiting for me at the Academy entrance. "Megumi-chan!" he waves when he sees me, and my heart fills with happiness. "Gaara-kun!" I run over to him. We go inside the school together.

Gaara and I are in different classes. He's in the graduating year, while I'm just beginning my first year at the Academy. We're both six, though, so he must be really good, while I suck at everything because of my weak body. I don't have good control over my chakra, and if I concentrate too hard on studying I get dizzy and I sometimes faint. Even Arashi-sensei says that I would never make a good ninja.

But I guess it doesn't really matter: I only have a few years left to live, anyway.

* * *

"This isn't going to hurt," the nurses in white always say the same thing to me as they plunge the needle in to take a blood sample. But it always does.

I sit in the waiting room with my mom, waiting for the results of the blood test to come out. My mom seems really tired recently. I think she's worried about me. But she doesn't need to be. I'm happy now.

The nurse comes into the room at that moment. She sees my mom and me, and walks over to us. I feel Kāchan's hand tense in mine at the serious look on the nurse's face.

"I'm afraid I have bad news for you, Ariyama-san," the nurse addresses my mom. Kāchan squeezes my hand. "What is it, Kankoshi-san?"*

"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, but we just found out that Megumi-chan's time to live has shortened."

My heart nearly stops right then and there. _Why_? I scream in my head. _Just when I'd finally made a new friend, everything has to be taken away from me_!

"H-how long does she have now?" my mom whispers the question.

The nurse bows her head. "At the most, a few months."

Kāchan buries her face in her hands. But for me, realizing that I have but a few months left to live makes me just want to live those months to the fullest.

So that's what I'll do.

* * *

***Kankoshi means nurse in Japanese.**

**Thx for reading! ^^**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks to Dreams-Wishes-Hopes, pierce through the heart and Little-Retard for reviewing! OMGOMG pierce through the heart is your profile pic Ayano and Shintaro?! *screams about KagePro***

**Anyways I forgot to put this in the last chapter but I think it's slightly obvious... I DON'T OWN NARUTO. This applies to all of the chapters in this story.**

* * *

I can hear the sound of the clock ticking as I nervously wait for my turn to be tested on throwing weapons. My arms are really thin and they can't throw far. My classmates all laugh at me whenever we throw kunai or shuriken, and Arashi-sensei always shakes his head in exasperation at how weak I am. I can already hear the disappointment in his voice as he calls my name. "Megumi Ariyama."

My classmates start whispering, but I try to block them out as I throw the knife Arashi-sensei gives me with all my might.

It hits the wooden pole that we're supposed to be aiming at, but it doesn't stick: it just bounces off without even making a mark.

I try to keep tears from coming to my eyes as the sounds of jeering surround me. _This isn't the first time this has happened, so quit crying like a baby, Megumi_, I tell myself. But tears still drip onto the floor, and they just cause more laughter and sneering.

Normally I would just run away and hide for the rest of the day until my parents came to pick me up from the Academy, but for some reason – maybe knowing that I'm going to die soon is making me not care about hurting myself – I don't feel like putting up with them anymore. Not only they never include me in anything, but they also dare to laugh at me. And worst of all, they bully my friend Gaara.

"Shut up."

But I was too quiet. Nobody heard me. So I take a deep breath, and then scream, "Shut up!"

Everyone falls silent then.

Seeing everybody staring at me is too much: I flee the classroom and hide in the bushes like I usually do.

But this time, I don't cry. Instead, I smile, because today, I was finally able to do something.

* * *

I'm still hidden in the bushes when the bell rings, signaling the end of school. I search for Gaara among all of the students that come rushing out of the building. When I finally spot his mass of red hair, I jump up and run over to him.

But then I stop in horror when I see a bigger kid waving a kunai above Gaara's head. "Come and get it!" he mocks my friend. "Sensei's gonna get mad at you if you lose your kunai!"

"Give it back to him!" I yell.

The kid turns around to face me, and grins. "Make me!"

I clench my fists. I'm so sick of people being mean to Gaara and I. What did we ever do to them?

I wish that it were just my family and friend who existed in this world. I wish that everyone else would…

"Just disappear!" I yell, and charge at the boy. My palm connects with his stomach. His eyes widen for a fraction of a second, and then he drops to the ground.

I hear the laughter on the playground turn once again to screaming as everyone runs away from me. But this time, they have a real reason to.

I put a hand to my mouth and back away. What did I just do? I bend down to feel his pulse, but there isn't any. _Did I just kill someone? Oh, my God, I really am a monster! This is why no one likes me… Now Gaara will probably be scared of me too_…

But then, suddenly, I feel a hand on my wrist. "What's that on your hand?" Gaara asks me. I look down, and gasp when I see the kanji for sun appear on the back of my hand.

"Sun?" I ask, confused.

"Taiyō.* That was that boy's name," Gaara gestures to the boy lying on the ground. "Maybe… maybe you just sealed him inside of you?"

My eyes widen. "Is that possible?"

Gaara nods.

"How do you know?" I ask him.

He shrugs. "I… I just learned it in school."

"Can you unseal things too?" I ask.

"If you can seal things then I'm sure you can unseal them, too," Gaara replies.

"I don't even know what I just did, though," I admit. "I was just so mad, and then… it just happened. Like that."

"Maybe your parents will know," Gaara suggests. "If you're good at fūinjutsu,** then your parents probably will be, too."

"Yeah, maybe." Speak of the devil, I see my mom rounding the corner. "Ah, my mom's here: I gotta go. Bye, Gaara-kun!"

"Bye, Megumi-chan," Gaara waves. He then begins to walk away. _Did he wait at the school just to accompany me_? I wonder. I thought he had been waiting for his parents.

I smile at how sweet he is. _I'll bring him something tomorrow to thank him_, I decide as I approach my mom.

"How was school today, Gumi-chan?" my mom asks me.

"Um, mom… I think I sort of sealed someone inside of me… Do you know how to unseal him?"

My mom gapes at me. "You sealed a human? Already?"

"'Already?'" I repeat, confused.

My mom hesitates for a moment, and then makes the decision to tell me whatever's on her mind. "My clan specializes in sealing things. I was hoping you would inherit the talent: and you did."

"Wait: Kāchan has a clan?" I tilt my head.

"The Uzumaki Clan," my mom whispers. "Most of them were killed because people were scared of their powers."

My eyes widen. "But Kāchan escaped?"

"I was on a mission in the Sand at that time… When I heard what had happened, I changed my name, settled down here and married your father." My mom pauses and bends down to look me in the eye. "You can't tell anyone, okay, Gumi-chan?"

"Don't worry, Kāchan. I won't," I promise. "But can you help me unseal this guy?"

"Okay… Wait, did you seal his entire body?" my mom asks. I shake my head. "No. His body's right there," I gesture to the fallen boy on the ground.

"Did anybody see this happen?" my mom demands.

"Um, I think everyone except the teachers," I admit sheepishly.

My mom bites her lip, and sighs. "Well, we'd better clean this up before they see it, too. Can I see the seal you used?"

I wordlessly show her my hand, and the red kanji on it. She nods. "It's just a common seal. I can undo it for you."

She then places her hand over mine and mutters, "Kai!"

The boy on the ground suddenly leaps up, startling me. He stares at me for a second, and then shrieks, "Bakemono!"

"Oi! My daughter is not a monster!" my mom makes to chase after the boy as he runs away. But I grab her hand. "It's okay, Kāchan," I smile, but it's a weak and thin smile; nothing like the one I gave to Gaara when he left.

* * *

***Taiyō is the Japanese word for 'sun'**

****Sealing techniques**

**Review please! ^^**


	3. Chapter 3

**I'm back, after nearly a month! ...Please forgive me XD**

**Thanks to pierce through the heart, Dreams-Wishes-Hopes and 2Lzy2SgnIn for reviewing!**

**pierce through the heart: IKR?! Why did Ayano have to die?! lol I actually wrote a fanfic where she survives the Heat Haze cause ShinAya just can't not happen X/**

**Anyway about Megumi's ability to seal things, it's just a talent passed down in her clan.**

**Dreams-Wishes-Hopes: Thank you! You have no idea how much I appreciate your reviews :D**

* * *

Gaara is waiting for me again when I reach the Academy. "How did it go? Did you manage to unseal that guy?" he asks me, with a worried expression on his face.

I grin, and the crease between his eyebrows immediately disappears. "Yup!"

"Can you teach me how to unseal things?" Gaara asks. It might just be my imagination, but I feel like there's something else besides curiosity behind his question.

_Yup, it's definitely my imagination_, I think to myself. _I'm going crazy, aren't I_?

"No, my mom did it, so I don't know how," I tell Gaara. "But I can teach you how to seal things, and you're smart, so you can probably figure out how to unseal them from there."

"Sure! Thanks," Gaara replies.

To my surprise, he takes much longer to get it than I did. I grin excitedly. Finally, I'm good at something!

But, being the genius that he is, he eventually manages to seal a pebble inside of him. And, being the weakling that I am, I collapse onto the ground, exhausted.

"Megumi-chan?" Gaara asks in alarm. "Are you okay?"

I open my mouth to reply that I'm fine, just tired, but I suddenly have a violent coughing fit. When I take my hand away from my mouth, it's covered in blood.

"Megumi-chan!" Gaara cries. "What's happening?"

I smile up at him reassuringly. "It's okay, Gaara-kun. I'm just sick. But I'll be fine." I don't want him to know that I'm going to die soon: I want to experience life like a normal person before I go.

Before Gaara can make a reply, the boy named Taiyou that I sealed earlier approaches us, but this time he's surrounded by his friends. "Oh, look," he sneers. "The two monsters are becoming friends."

Gaara clenches his fists. "Megumi-chan is not a monster!" He then lifts his arms, and a wave of sand begins to rush towards the group of boys.

The expressions on their faces turn from triumphant to terrified as they run away, shrieking, "It's the monster, Gaara! Everyone, run!"

"Gaara-kun is not a monster!" I yell after them, but they either didn't hear or chose to ignore me.

I glance at Gaara. He has his head lowered. "But, Megumi-chan… I am one."

"What are you talking about?" I demand. "Of course you're not!"

Gaara's lower lip trembles. "You know about the ghost spirit, Shukaku?" he asks, seeming close to tears.

"Yeah, what about it?" I ask, confused.

"I… I'm Shukaku!" Gaara bursts out.

I stare at him. "You seem alive to me."

"I am. I'm the body of Shukaku," Gaara shuts his eyes, as if waiting for me to beat him or something.

"You mean… he's sealed inside of you?" I ask him. He nods, swallowing.

Suddenly, it all makes sense: his curiosity about unsealing things, and the way he avoids my questions about why people run away from him.

But I'm not going to run away. He's my friend, and he never hurt me, or anyone for that matter: at least that I've seen. So I tell him, "But that doesn't mean that you're him! You're not a monster, Gaara-kun! You're human!"

His eyes widen at my words. "Really?" he whispers.

I nod with a grin. "Yup!"

But Gaara's smile falters. "Then why does my own father send people to kill me?"

"He does that?" I gasp. Then I clench my fists. "Well, he's the monster, then!"

"But he's the Kazekage," Gaara tells me.

"Well, it's not like there haven't been evil kage before," I reply.

Gaara shakes his head in disbelief. "You're so brave to say that, Megumi-chan. He's my father and I still wouldn't dare do something like that."

I shrug. "Well, I'm going to die anyways." Then I cover my mouth. _Oh, no! That just slipped out_!

Gaara's eyes widen in horror. "What?"

I sigh. "I'm going to die soon, 'cause I'm sick."

"When?" Gaara whispers.

"A few weeks at the most," I answer.

Gaara's tears begin to spill over. My eyes widen, as he cries, "No! Don't leave me, Megumi-chan!"

I throw my arms around him. "It's okay, Gaara-kun," I whisper. "I'm right here."

"But you won't be for long," Gaara sobs.

I pause. Then I suggest hesitantly, "There might be a way to keep me with you. But I don't know if it'll work for sure."

Gaara immediately brightens. "What is it?"

"Well… I was thinking that you could seal me inside of you," I tell him shyly.

His eyes widen, and then he grins so widely that it must hurt. "Then I'm gonna train hard until I can seal humans!"

I give him an equally huge smile. "Don't expect my training to be easy!"

* * *

It turns out that I'm just as exhausted by my own training as Gaara is. But it seems to be working at least: Gaara has moved on from sealing pebbles to rocks. Now he's working on trees, which are more similar to humans: not only the shape, but also the fact that they are living.

"Megumi-chan!" I start at the sound of my name, and see Gaara running up to me. "Guess what? I just sealed a tree!"

I gasp. "Really? How big was the tree?"

Gaara hesitates. Then he raises his hand a foot off the ground.

I giggle. "Then we still have some work to do, don't we? Here, let me see how you did it."

"Ha!" Gaara yells as his palm makes contact with a tree. The tree bends at the place where he hit it, and is sucked into him from there.

"You have to do it faster, otherwise when you try to suck in something bigger, it'll be too heavy and you'll lose it," I tell him. "Here, let me show you the speed that you want." Then I slam my palm against the trunk of a tree as tall as the Academy building. It disappears almost immediately after I touch it, whereas with Gaara, you could see the entire process in slow motion: the bend, and the absorption.

I unseal the tree just as quickly. My mother taught me how to unseal things. I tried to teach Gaara that as well, and he can unseal everything that he sealed himself: but unsealing Shukaku is just on another level, even for me.

I drop down onto the floor, taken over by another coughing fit. I notice that they've been happening a lot more recently. I'm nearing the end…

Gaara rushes over to me. "Megumi-chan! Please don't push yourself!" he begs me.

I try to tell him that I'm fine, but I choke on the blood coming up through my throat. I can't breathe. My eyes bulge as I claw at my throat in desperation. Gaara's eyes widen as he realizes what's going on.

I'm dying.

I manage to rasp, "Seal me now," to Gaara before everything around me turns black.

* * *

**Review please!**


	4. Chapter 4

**6 hours of badminton today and yesterday... I'm dead XD**

**Thanks to Pleasereadmything, They Will all fall Eventually, Shadow-Ninja-Captain69 and Little-Retard for reviewing!**

**Little-Retard: Oh lol well thanks for reviewing! I'll sort of be following the original storyline... at least the parts with Gaara in them ^^**

**They Will all fall Eventually: Ahaha yea this chapter is especially depressing... Anyways about Megumi's sickness, I sort of just made it up XP. And haha, thanks - I guess I could've just named her Ai but I thought the different pronunciation was cooler :D**

* * *

I wake up in a puddle of water. _What… Am I dead_? I wonder.

I take in my surroundings. I'm actually not lying in a puddle: the entire floor is covered in water. I'm in a room with three concrete walls. Where the other wall is supposed to be, there is a gate with a paper tag that says "Seal" on it.

Oh, that's right. Gaara was supposed to seal me. It must have worked!

"Gaara-kun?" I call out tentatively. "Can you hear me?"

"He can't hear you," a deep voice growls. I jump and whirl around. A gigantic tanuki stands there in front of me.

"Who are you?" I ask him.

"My name is Shukaku."

My eyes widen.

Shukaku frowns. "That's odd… I can't smell any fear coming off of you. Aren't you afraid of me?"

"No," I answer. "I just want to know why I can't reach Gaara!"

"That would be because I'm not letting you," Shukaku replies smugly.

"Why would you do that?" I ask him with a frown.

"Because you make Gaara happy," he growls at me.

"Why wouldn't you want Gaara to be happy?" I demand. "He deserves it!"

"Because the more angry he gets, the more blood I get," Shukaku grins evilly.

"Blood?" I gasp.

"I can kill people with Gaara's hands," Shukaku explains sadistically. "Whenever he sleeps, I eat away at a little bit of his soul. One day, he'll break and let me out."

"Can't you just ask him nicely to let you out?" I ask, wondering why he has to resort to such drastic measures.

Shukaku throws his head back and begins to shake with mocking laughter. "You kids are so naïve! In this world, you won't get everything you want just by saying 'please'!"

"But eating at peoples' souls isn't the right way to get what you want either!" I clench my fists. I begin to pound on the grills of the gate that cages Shukaku and I. "Gaara-kun! Gaara-kun, please listen to me!"

But my friend doesn't respond.

"I told you so," Shukaku smirks.

* * *

_The red-haired boy stood over his friend's still body. "Megumi-chan?" he called out. But there was no response. The boy began to grow desperate. "Megumi-chan!" he cried, trying to search for his friend's spirit inside of him. But all he felt was the same icy-cold presence of the monster that he had ruined his life._

_ He let out a scream of frustration. Why did the world hate him so much, to first curse him with the One-Tails, and then take away the only friend he ever had? The tears of pain and loneliness that he had been holding back for so long began to cascade down his face like a river. The sand of the monster inside of him began to swirl around his body. It carved his friend's name onto the left side of his forehead as he cried out for her._

_ The girl's parents were shocked to see the One-Tails jinchūriki losing control of his tailed beast. Then they saw their daughter's body lying on the ground beside him, and assumed the worst._

_ "You monster! You killed our daughter!" the girl's father yelled, and charged at the boy with a kunai._

_ The boy looked up at him with dark eyes. He had already been taken over by the One-Tails. Shukaku raised his arms, and the sand rushed towards the pathetic human standing before him. The monster crushed him with his hands._

_ It then turned to the woman. She was making hand seals. The monster's eyes widened as it realized what she was doing, and lashed out at her in a frenzied panic. Her eyes closed and her body fell to the ground, but it was too late for the monster. Its screams mixed with the girl's as it was forced back into its container._

* * *

"Kāsan! Tōsan!" I cry, pounding my fist on the gate that separates Gaara and I.

Shukaku watches me in amusement. "See? That's how you get what you want."

I whip around. "I hate you!" I scream, and charge at him, blinded by tears. He merely raises his tail and flicks me away contemptuously. I fly in the air and then my body slams against the wall. But it doesn't hurt, and I keep attacking him until my anger fades and I'm just a hollow shell. That feeling is a hundred times worse than the anger.

I slump onto the ground. "Why on Earth would you want this?" I whisper to the One-Tails.

"This is revenge," he hisses.

"Revenge?" I ask. "For what?"

"For the way humanity has treated me," he growls. "I never did anything to them, and yet they shunned me and labeled me as a monster. They shut me away inside of humans and turned me into a mere tool for their own use. I've lived locked away like this for a long time – much longer than a six-year-old like you could ever imagine. It's enough to drive anyone insane."

"Oh," I whisper, speechless. I've heard a lot of stories about the tailed demon Shukaku: they always tell how he massacred people, and how heroes sacrificed themselves to host him. But it seems that, long ago, humans had been the ones antagonizing Shukaku.

Not that I forgive him for killing my parents… but I think that I understand him a little bit better now.

"Still," I tell him, "you're murdering people who haven't done anything to you: the ones that you want to take revenge on are probably long dead, judging from how much you emphasized how long of a time you've been shut away."

"They're all the same!" Shukaku growls. "Even if I never did anything to them, humans would still think that I'm a monster!"

"You don't know that," I reply. "Besides, my parents let me be friends with Gaara even though they knew that you were inside of him."

"But they still called me a monster and tried to kill me!" Shukaku snarls.

"That's because they thought that you killed me!" I exclaim.

"But I didn't!" Shukaku says.

"Come on: you were standing over my dead body and your sand was swirling around! What did you expect them to think?" I demand.

Shukaku glares at me. "Humans are stupid," he mutters.

I meet his gaze without flinching. "Besides, if you had your way you would've killed me anyway, right?"

"Yeah," Shukaku shrugs nonchalantly.

I clench my fists. "Before anyone else dies, I'm going to change this attitude of yours," I tell him.

* * *

**It's so hard to write from a six-year-old's point of view... so sorry if Megumi sounds way older than she is X/**

**Review please!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks to Dreams-Wishes-Hopes, Codebreakeryuuki, Little-Retard and Pleasereadmything for reviewing!**

* * *

Things seem to be getting better.

After Gaara regains himself, he collapses on the Academy playground. It's late, so his family must have worried about him and sent someone to get him. It's a man with blond hair and purple eyes. From the way that he gently lifts the bodies of my parents, Gaara and I, I can tell that he's a kind person.

I close my eyes and smile. So there are still people in this world that care about Gaara. He'll survive without me. It will be hard, but he'll make more bonds. And even though he doesn't know it yet, he'll help me change Shukaku.

* * *

Gaara stares at a picture of a woman who looks a lot like the man who brought him home from the Academy.

"That his mother," Shukaku tells me. "She's dead."

I turn to him. "Did you kill her?"

"Yes. Indirectly. I was sealed into Gaara when he was still in his mother's stomach. When she gave birth to him, it killed her."

"Well, that's not really your fault, then," I say, relieved that Shukaku hadn't taken away Gaara's mother on purpose.

Then my relief turns into horror as Gaara pulls out a knife. He raises it, unaware that I'm screaming my head off for him to stop. Then he stabs down at his arm.

I throw myself against the gate. It actually shakes a bit with the force of my body hitting it. And that's when I know that I made a difference.

"It's no use. The sand interferes," Gaara sighs. I laugh, hysterical with joy. "Gaara-kun! Gaara-kun, it's me, Megumi!"

Silence.

"Gaara-kun, can you hear me?" I yell, my brief happiness quickly evaporating.

No response.

"Gaara-sama." A voice calls Gaara's name from the doorway of his room. I look up and through Gaara's eyes I see the man who rescued him at the Academy.

"Yashamaru," Gaara says.

"Gaara-sama, I'm your caretaker now. I am to keep an eye on your health and protect you. So please don't do such a thing in front of me."

My heart fills with hope again at Yashamaru's words. I can't save Gaara, but he can.

"Nē, Yashamaru…" Gaara hesitates.

"Yes?" Yashamaru asks.

"Can you feel pain without getting a wound?"

Yashamaru nods seriously. "Yes, you can. And sometimes, the pain is worse than when you actually get injured."

"How does it happen?" Gaara asks.

Yashamaru sighs, knowing what Gaara's getting at. "When you lose someone precious to you, you feel pain in your heart. That's where you're feeling it now, right?"

Gaara nods. Then he whispers, "How do you make it stop?"

"Love," Yashamaru replies gently. "That's the only medicine that can heal a wound of the heart."

"How do I get that?" Gaara asks him desperately, clutching at his chest.

"You've already received it," Yashamaru smiles at him. "I love you, Gaara-sama."

I don't know which is bigger: Gaara's smile or mine.

* * *

At night, Gaara sits on top of the Kazekage building. He can't sleep; otherwise Shukaku will eat at his soul. I know what he feels like now, not being able to sleep, not being to escape from reality just for a little while. But tonight, Gaara doesn't mind reality so much anymore.

Then he shocks me when he whispers, "Megumi-chan… I miss you."

"Gaara-kun, I'm right here," I repeat the words that I told him on the day I told him that I was going to die. But this time, he can't hear me.

Suddenly, I see a barrage of kunai flying towards Gaara. My eyes widen, and I quickly throw myself against the gate again. The knives hit the wall of sand and fall harmlessly to the ground.

Gaara whips around, terrified. A ninja with only their eyes exposed stands before him. He must be one of the Fourth Kazekage's assassins. The assassin throws more kunai at Gaara, but I protect him yet again.

Then Shukaku lends Gaara some of his power. Gaara raises his hand, and sand tightens around the assassin's body. Then, with a clench of Gaara's fist the sand implodes, crushing the assassin. But he didn't kill him.

Gaara trembles, horrified. "Who are you?" he whispers. "Why are you doing this?"

When the assassin doesn't respond, Gaara slowly approaches him. When he lifts the cloth covering the assassin's face, both of us gasp in sync.

The assassin rasps, "You are strong, as I expected… Gaara-sama."

Gaara clutches his chest in agony. "Yashmaru!" he screams. Tears begin to course down his face. "Why? Why would you do this? I thought that you…"

"It was an order," Yashmaru states. "I was ordered to kill you… by your father."

"Otōsan…" Gaara whispers. But then his eyes brighten a little. "Then you did this unwillingly because Otōsan ordered you to…?"

"Wrong."

Gaara's eyes widen.

"It is true that I received the order from Kazekage-sama… but I could have refused it if I had wanted to," Yashamaru tells him.

"Gaara-sama… deep within my heart… I hate you."

Gaara lets out a gasp of horror at his last three words.

"You took the life of my beloved sister when you were born," Yashamaru explains hollowly. "I tried to love you by thinking of you as her treasured child… but I couldn't. My sister did not wish for your birth. She became the Sand's sacrifice, and she died cursing this village. My sister named you Gaara after a self-loving carnage. She did it because she wanted to pass down her hatred of the Sand to you – not out of love. You were never loved, Gaara-sama."

Gaara sobs so hard that he misses Yashamaru's next words: "Please die." But I see the explosive tags underneath his flak jacket.

They go off, and Yashamaru dies. But Gaara kneels on the ground, enclosed in a sphere of sand.

After the sounds of the explosions fade away, Gaara's screams of agony can be heard. Tears stream down my face at the pain in his voice.

"I finally understand now," he rasps. "I'm alone. I'll never believe in anyone or love anyone again."

"No! Gaara-kun, listen to me! Don't do this!" I cry, pounding on the gate. But my friend's eyes turn red, and sand begins to swirl around him.

Beside me, Shukaku smirks.

* * *

**God, I want to punch that Kazekage...**

**Review please! ^^ lol**


	6. Chapter 6

**Thanks to Little-Retard, Dreams-Wishes-Hopes, demonlight6767 and The Other Fangirl for reviewing!**

**Little-Retard: lol does that mean that you liked it? XD**

* * *

Gaara's father stopped Shukaku's attack on the village. I find it hard to believe that a man who tried to kill his own son would actually care for the people who live in the Sand.

I'm sickened that such a cruel man rules over my village. He's corrupting all of the children, making them hate Gaara just as he does. If he showed them that his son wasn't the monster inside of him, Gaara would have been able to lead a much better life than the one he has now. I hadn't had the greatest of lives, either – it's even worse in death – but at least I'd had a family who loved me, and didn't try to kill me.

"Who sealed you inside of Gaara?" I ask Shukaku. Whoever cursed Gaara to such a fate, there was going to be hell to pay for them once I learned how to get past this gate.

"That would be Chiyo-bā," Shukaku tells me. "But the Fourth Kazekage ordered her to do it."

I clench my fists. "So he sealed you into Gaara, but hates him for being a monster? That makes no sense!"

Shukaku rolls his eyes. "Once again, there you go assuming that you know everything in this world. The Kazekage intended to use Gaara as a tool to control my power. But Gaara's too emotional, so he loses control of me a lot. The Kazekage deems him a failure. He thinks that Gaara's too dangerous, so he wants him dead. Or he did, at least. Now he realizes that Gaara not caring about anyone anymore means that he'll have better control over his emotions, and therefore me."

"If that's his only reason for not trying to kill Gaara, then he really is stupid," I growl. "Like he is now, Gaara's better off dead!"

"Why?" Shukaku demands. "Now he can control my immense power!"

"What does that matter, if he has nothing to protect?" I fire back, exasperated. "He hates his village and his family! What else does a ninja fight for?"

"Himself," Shukaku answers simply.

I turn away from him. "You disgust me," I mutter.

* * *

After Yashamaru died, the Fourth Kazekage took Gaara in under his roof again: _Probably to observe him and do experiments on him_, I think disgustedly.

When the Kazekage opens the door to his house, Gaara's siblings greet him nervously. It's obvious that they're scared of him. At least they're trying to be nice to him, though.

But Gaara just brushes past them and slams the door to his bedroom.

* * *

I'm hit with a wave of nostalgia at Gaara's first day back at the Academy.

Everybody runs away from him as he approaches like always, but this time, he just stomps past them into the building.

The teacher does a double take when he sees the ice in Gaara's green eyes. He leaves him alone for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, the students aren't so wise.

"Hey, Bakemono!" one of them waves to Gaara, mocking friendliness. "I heard that your monster girlfriend died!"

Gaara stiffens.

"Serves her right," another student mutters.

The next day, he's in the hospital nursing three broken limbs.

"He's lucky that the Kazekage came along in time to save him," Shukaku mutters.

"For once, I agree with you," I agree, watching Gaara practice his sand techniques with his father. At six years old, he can almost defeat the Kazekage.

Almost.

Secretly, I'm watching how he keeps Shukaku in check. The information could prove useful if he ever dies, and there isn't anyone to stop him from going on a rampage anymore. I would probably have a better chance of fighting Shukaku from the inside. Also, I have a huge advantage in the fact that I can't die.

Still, I have a lot of training to do if I ever want to defeat a tailed beast.

Shukaku spots me practicing my sealing techniques. "Oh, no you don't," he says, and swipes at me with his tail, sending my body flying and then slamming into the wall. I glare at him. "You want to fight? Bring it on!" It'll be good practice for me anyway.

Unfortunately, I can still lose consciousness. Shukaku slams his paw down on my small body, and I black out – but not before hearing him mutter, "Stupid brat".

* * *

Days, weeks, even months pass, but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere with Shukaku. I mean, sure, I've extended the length of time that I'm able to stay conscious after challenging him to a fight from three seconds to thirty, but I'm still nowhere near being able to defeat him.

My body can't feel pain, and it isn't ridden with sickness like when I was alive. Those are great advantages, but the problem is, Shukaku just knocks me out before I can get very much practice in. He's the only thing other than me inside of Gaara, so I can't practice on anything else. Not that he would even let me practice.

And about changing his attitude… If anything, the fact that Shukaku can't kill me since I'm already dead is making him even angrier than before.

Meanwhile, Gaara has been losing more and more of his emotions. My seventh birthday passed, but he just spent the day as he normally did: glaring at everyone when he was forced to go out, and shutting himself away in his room the rest of the time.

Today is his birthday. I doubt that this day will be different from any other, either.

As usual, when Gaara arrives at the dinner table to eat his breakfast, his siblings, Temari and Kankurō, increase their eating speed tenfold and dash outside. They're probably too terrified to remember that it's his birthday. Either that, or they hate him and don't want to wish him a happy birthday.

As usual, Gaara walks to the Academy without them.

As usual, he glares at all of his classmates as he passes them.

As usual, he eats lunch alone.

As usual, the teacher ignores him for the entire day.

As usual, he walks home alone.

As usual, he brushes past his siblings and father and shuts himself in his room immediately after getting home.

I'm the only one who remembers to say, "Happy birthday, Gaara."

But as usual, he can't hear me.

* * *

**So this was sort of a filler chapter leading into the Chūnin Exams, which will be five years later. I can't wait!**

**Until next time! And d****on't forget to review! ^^**


	7. Chapter 7: 5 years later

**Thanks to LITTLE RED FOXX, Little-Retard, KillerRedAngel, Dreams-Wishes-Hopes, OneOfMillions and The Other Fangirl for reviewing!**

**Little-Retard: ahahaha I don't hate you! I just like writing angsty stories for some reason... Well I'm glad you liked it :D**

**The Other Fangirl: Megumi's kind of used to being alone and being bullied so she won't go completely insane, but she will get a lot tougher.**

* * *

Five more of Gaara's birthdays have passed since then, and the only person who ever said "Happy birthday" to him was I. But Shukaku still isn't letting me get through to him, so he just sinks further and further into darkness while I can only stand there helplessly and watch.

As the Kazekage predicted, Gaara's lack of emotions has made it easier for him to control Shukaku. Gaara's skill with manipulating sand has improved considerably enough for his father to send him on a mission.

The Kazekage made an alliance with a creepy man named Orochimaru to take over the Leaf. Gaara's father really has no morals: he made a peace treaty with the Leaf, and yet he took up Orochimaru's offer to help him invade it.

I don't trust this Orochimaru guy, either. He seems like the type to use people to achieve his own purposes, and then discard them later. I just hope that the discarding part isn't going to involve killing…

It seems that at least one person agrees with me: Gaara's older sister, Temari. She protested against invading the Leaf. But her father shot her down, and now they are inside of the Leaf, under the guise of participating in the Chūnin Exams. There's no point in them actually taking the exams: they're already far past chūnin level: even Temari and Kankurō.

As expected, they passed the first and second stages of the exam with ease. Actually, that's a total understatement: they beat the previous record of passing the second stage by four hours.

Apparently the exam was easier this year than in the previous years, though. The chūnin who was supposed to be proctoring the third stage suddenly announced that there were going to be preliminary rounds to eliminate some of the genin, as more than double the expected number had passed. Still, I'm sure that Gaara would have passed last year's exam as well. From the looks of what I'm seeing here, none of these genin are good enough to defeat him.

The match between two weak Leaf girls ends, and the electric board that chooses the match-ups begins to shuffle names again. It stops on Gaara's and Rock Lee's.

A boy in a green jumpsuit pumps his fist into the air. "Yosh! I fooled you! I said that I didn't want to go, and you chose me!"

"Is he talking to the board?" Temari whispers to Kankurō. Her brother shrugs. They both look so calm.

But I'm screaming at Rock Lee to forfeit his match. Knowing the person that Gaara has now become, even if Lee's weak, Gaara won't hesitate to kill him.

Of course, Lee can't hear me, and he leaps down onto the battlefield with an enthusiastic yell.

"You may begin," the proctor brings his hand down in the starting signal for spars, and then leaps out of the way of the fight.

Lee begins to use taijutsu to attack Gaara. But I protect him with sand. As much as I don't want an innocent kid like Lee to die, Gaara is still my friend. I still hold out hope that he will change, one day.

But then Lee takes off some weights – actually, a lot of weights – and it makes him ten times faster than he already is – too fast for me to keep up with him. He manages to get past my shield of sand, and lands a couple of hits on Gaara. But Gaara wears armour of sand as well. With both of our techniques combined, we make an absolute defense.

Then Lee decides, with his sensei's approval, to use a forbidden technique to defeat my friend. With the forbidden technique, Lee opens one of the Eight Chakra Gates, giving him five times his normal strength. He launches Gaara into the air with a kick, and appears behind him. Lee then restrains Gaara with his arms and drives him into the ground at an incredible speed.

The Leaf genin all begin applauding. Only I saw Gaara switch out with a replacement at the last moment. The sand clone on the ground soon begins to crumble, just like Gaara's sand armour when it had been broken.

The real Gaara emerges with a grin on his face. His eyes are filled with pure hatred.

This is it. Lee is going to die.

Gaara makes a hand seal, and the sand from the gourd on his back rushes over to Lee, crushing his leg. I block my ears from hearing Lee's scream of agony.

But then a blur of green flashes in front of Lee, shielding him from further harm. It's Lee's sensei.

Gaara's eyes widen as he sees the teacher defending his student. It breaks my heart when he asks, "Why are you protecting him?"

"Because he's my beloved student," Gai replies simply.

Gaara suddenly clutches his head and cries out in agony. Too distracted by the pain in his voice, I don't catch what he's yelling at first. But then he throws his head back and screams, "_Megumi-chan_!"

"Gaara-kun," I whisper, before Gaara passes out, and everything fades to black.

* * *

As soon as Gaara wakes up again in his room, he begins to make his way to the Leaf hospital. "What is he doing?" I ask.

Shukaku's response shocks me. "He's probably going to finish his business with that Rock Lee kid."

"You mean… He's going to kill him?" I gasp.

Shukaku grins maliciously. "Yes."

"Please don't do this," I whisper.

"It doesn't matter if you say please – I still won't change my mind," Shukaku states.

Gaara finds Lee's room in the hospital. He stands at the Leaf genin's bedside, glaring at him with a hatred that terrifies me. Then he lifts his hand, and sand begins to creep onto the hospital bed, until it covers Lee's body completely.

I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to see Lee get crushed in Gaara's sand.

But instead of hearing the sound of Lee's screams, I hear Gaara's voice saying, "What the…? My body… it won't move…"

I open my eyes to see a boy with black hair tied in a ponytail standing in front of Gaara, their shadows merging. I know this guy. He's one of the genin from the Chūnin Exams, Shikamaru Nara. He uses shadows to tie his opponents to him. Everything that he does, his opponent will automatically copy.

"What are you doing to Rock Lee?" Shikamaru asks, his eyes narrowed.

"I'm trying to kill him," Gaara replies offhandedly.

Shikamaru's eyes widen. "Why do you need to do that? You won the match against him. Do you have some sort of personal grudge against him?"

"No," Gaara answers. "I'm going to kill him because I want to."

"Jeez, you must've had a pretty rough childhood," Shikamaru shakes his head.

"Yes, I did," Gaara replies. "I took the life of a woman who was called my mother when I was born. To become the ultimate ninja, my father used a technique to bind a spirit of sand to me. I was a monster at birth. The monster is called Shukaku. It was sealed inside of a teakettle. It is the soul of an elder priest from the Sand."

Shukaku snorts. "The things that humans make up to satisfy their curiosity."

"It's not true?" I ask him.

"Of course not," Shukaku scoffs. I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn't.

"Then what is the truth?" I prompt.

"Why do you care? I'm just a monster; who cares where I came from? Who cares if I ever had a family, or friends?" Shukaku fires at me.

"I care," I retort.

"No, you don't! I killed your parents! I ruined your friend's life!" Shukaku laughs hysterically.

"Someone like you wouldn't be able to imagine what kind of childhood I had," Gaara says to Shikamaru. "I stole my mother's life and was created to become the village's masterpiece. And as the Kazekage's son, my father taught me the secrets of ninja techniques. I grew up being overprotected, spoiled, and then left alone. I thought that was the love of family. Now I know that a family is just lumps of meat linked by hatred and murderous intent."

"What on Earth would make you think that?" Shikamaru demands.

Gaara grins. "These past six years, starting from when I was six… my father tried to assassinate me numerous times."

"What?!" Shikamaru gasps. "But I thought that he spoiled you!"

"Something that is too strong eventually becomes feared," Gaara explains. "Since I was born from the usage of a technique, my mind was unstable. The idiots in my village finally noticed that my emotions were unpredictable. To the Kazekage, my father, I was the village's trump card… but at the same time, I was also a threat. After I turned six, it seemed that I was classified as a dangerous being. Now, I am only a relic of the past that they want to get rid of.

"So, why do I exist and live? I asked myself that question, but I couldn't find an answer… until _that_ incident happened."

"What incident?" Shikamaru asks.

"The only friend that I had in the world died," Gaara tells him.

"How did that give you an answer?" Shikamaru inquires.

"It taught me that if I try to love anyone, I will just be hurt."

My eyes widen.

_It's my fault that Gaara turned out this way_?

* * *

**Review please!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks to LITTLE RED FOXX, The Other Fangirl, Little-Retard, Ash6751, Dreams-Wishes-Hopes and Jonas Xerxes for your feedback! ^^**

**The Other Fangirl: aww, don't be like that XD**

**Little Retard: No, no, I don't hate you at all: look, there's a little surprise for you at the end of this chapter ;D**

**Dreams-Wishes-Hopes: Thank you so much! I'm honoured to be one of your favourite authors!**

* * *

"So? Why do you think that you exist?" Shikamaru asks Gaara.

"I exist… to kill everyone other than me. I fight only for myself, and love only myself. As long as there are people to kill… this world is wonderful." Gaara says that with an evil smile on his face. Then I hear his voice echo in the chamber where Shukaku and I are being kept. "Mother… there are people for you to kill."

Shukaku grins. "He is completely wrong about his mother cursing the village. She only wanted to protect him. But of course, he doesn't know that."

"Wait, so then why did Yashamaru say that his sister hated the Sand?" I ask.

"I'm guessing that he actually was forced to do so by the Fourth Kazekage. The Kazekage probably wanted to test Gaara's control over me," Shukaku explains.

I clench my fists. "Hey, Shukaku, if you ever want to kill anyone, kill Gaara's father, okay?"

"I can't at the moment. Not trapped in a body like this," Shukaku admits, gritting his teeth.

"Then let me help you. Let's train together," I grin – not out of friendliness towards Shukaku, but at the prospect of being able to kill Gaara's father.

I guess spending the last five years with Shukaku as my only companion has made me a little insane.

"Sure," the One-Tails replies. "But if you try to work on your sealing techniques, I'll kill you."

"You can't," I remind him.

Shukaku sighs. "I know… But at least I can kill these two idiots!" Suddenly, the cork pops out of the gourd on Gaara's back, and sand begins to pour out of it. Shikamaru's eyes widen, and mine close. I'm just about to block my ears when I hear a male voice command, "Gaara, stop!"

I recognize that voice. It's Gaara's team leader, Baki. I open my eyes to see Baki and Gaara's siblings standing in front of Shikamaru.

Baki has a sealing tag entrusted to him by Gaara's father, so Shukaku can't do anything with him there. Gaara crosses his arms, and the sand begins to return to his gourd.

Baki leads his team out of Lee's hospital room. But before Gaara steps out of the doorway, he turns back and says, "I will kill you."

* * *

The third stage of the Chūnin Exams starts today. Gaara is matched up against a genin named Sasuke Uchiha. Apparently he's pretty good: but I doubt that he'll be able to defeat Gaara.

Not everybody knows Gaara's true power, though. Two chūnin corner him as he makes his way to the stage. "Hey, brat," one of them addresses Gaara. "You know that there are a lot of people betting on your match with the Uchiha kid. Our Daimyō bet on Uchiha, so can you lose this match?"

Gaara just glares at them, the cork on his gourd loosening.

The two chūnin don't notice that his sand is about to be released on them. "Oi, at least say something!" one of them says.

"Or are you too scared to?" the other sneers.

The cork comes loose. I close my eyes and block my ears, until the faint screams that I can still hear come to an end.

Things aren't looking too good for that Uchiha kid.

Gaara emerges into the arena to face Sasuke. The crowd cheers, half of them shouting Sasuke's name, and half of them yelling Gaara's. Some of the audience members are just children. They shouldn't have to see Shukaku crush someone to death.

Memories suddenly flash before my eyes of Shukaku murdering my parents. They died so honourably, protecting their daughter, without crying or begging for their lives. I don't deserve love like that. Gaara does, but this world is so cruel that it won't let him have it. Well, I love him, but the cruel world won't let me reach him.

The only way that I can show Gaara love is by protecting him from harm. I focus on doing that, pushing the unpleasant memories away.

Sand begins to flow out of the gourd on Gaara's back. Sasuke leaps out of the way, but Gaara is suddenly struck by a horrible headache. He clutches his head and yells in pain.

"Don't get so mad at me, Kāsan," he rasps. "Back there… back there, I gave you foul blood… I'm sorry… But this time, it'll taste better."

Gaara cries out again, and the sand around him falls to the ground. I've never seen Gaara like this before a fight: it must mean that his opponent is strong.

Then he raises his head, his eyes filled with bloodlust. "Come," he beckons to Sasuke.

Sasuke smirks at him. "Then let's start! Ha!" he whips two shuriken at Gaara. They bounce harmlessly off of my sand shield. Shukaku then steps in, and uses the sand to make a clone. Sasuke and the sand clone begin to fight using taijutsu. Taijutsu isn't Gaara's forte, though, and Sasuke soon dispels the clone.

The sand in Gaara's gourd begins to rush towards Sasuke. The Uchiha leaps out of the way, and dashes towards Gaara, pulling his arm back in preparation for a punch. But his fist just meets my sand shield.

Sasuke smirks, and suddenly he disappears.

My eyes widen. He moves in the exact same way that Lee did.

Before I can comprehend what's going on, Sasuke punches Gaara in the face. My friend's body flies in the air and lands hard on the ground. Gaara's sand armour begins to crumble at the spot where Sasuke punched him.

Gaara slowly picks himself up off of the ground. Glaring at Sasuke, he puts his hands together to form a seal. Shukaku's sand begins to rise from the ground, and Sasuke leaps backwards to avoid it. But instead of attacking him, the sand closes in around Gaara, until it forms a sphere.

It may just look like Gaara' hiding, but this is even worse for Sasuke than if my friend attacked him with his sand. When Gaara covers himself like this, it means that he's about to transform.

I gasp. "He's totally forgetting about the plan!"

"Doesn't matter," Shukaku replies, grinning at the prospect of being fully let out. "We can invade the Leaf like this."

* * *

Shukaku's roar splits the air, and the sphere of sand around him explodes. I vaguely hear Gaara's team yelling at him to stop, but my friend is too far gone to listen.

Shukaku swipes his tail at Sasuke, who barely manages to dodge his speed. The One-Tails may be huge, but he's just as fast as he is powerful.

Some of the audience members wisely begin to run for their lives. But some of them, jōnin or ANBU probably, charge at Shukaku in an attempt to subdue him before the situation gets out of hand.

Gaara suddenly grins so wide that some of the jōnin actually step back in surprise. "Have them all for yourself, Kāsan," he laughs.

I've been with Gaara long enough to understand the meaning behind his seemingly senseless words. When he said that, he meant that he was going to let Shukaku take over completely.

Out of habit, I begin yelling at him. Even though I know that he can't hear me, desperate times make people do irrational things. "Don't do this, Gaara!" I beg, pounding on the gate, which has slowly begun to open.

I'm a lot smaller than the One-Tails, which normally puts me at a great disadvantage – but not this time. I manage to slip through the slight gap in between the two gates.

"Gaara, please!" I shout desperately. Looking back, I can see that Shukaku has started to try to force the gate open wider.

But then the gates suddenly shudder to a stop, and I hear something that I've been yearning to for five whole years.

"M-Megumi-chan?" Gaara whispers.

* * *

**There you go, everyone who wanted Megumi to be able to reach Gaara! ^.^**

**So, what'll happen when they finally meet each other again? Follow to find out! (reviews and favourites help, too... ;P)**


	9. Chapter 9

**IAAAAAAAA so many reviews! Thanks to LITTLE RED FOXX, The Other Fangirl, They Will all fall Eventually, Gerbilfriend, Random2Friends, Dreams-Wishes-Hopes, Freddie4153, Ash6751 and Little-Retard for reviewing!**

**Freddie4153: What do you mean by Megumi having a sand form?**

**Ash6751: Nahh, the ending's not gonna be that happy X/ This is an angst fic after all...**

**Little-Retard: lol I love you too! 3**

**Dreams-Wishes-Hopes and Gerbilfriend: I'm sorry, please forgive me XD Here, have the next chapter!**

* * *

_Gaara found himself in a dim room, ankle-deep in water. Peering through the darkness, he thought he saw a structure much like a prison, with a sealing tag stuck to one of the bars._

_"Gaara-kun!" a girl's voice suddenly shrieked happily._

_ When Gaara's eyes adjusted to the low lighting, his jaw dropped. Standing in front of him was the person whose name he had screamed out for the past five years, thinking that she was dead. Megumi had grown up a lot, that was for sure, but she still had the same huge grin on her face from five years ago._

_Literally trembling with joy, he gasped, "Oh my God, Megumi-chan! You're alive!"_

_ "Well, not really alive," Megumi laughed sheepishly. _Her laugh is beautiful_, Gaara thought._

_ Megumi explained to him, "You sealed me successfully on the day that I died, but Shukaku wouldn't let me reach you."_

_ Gaara clenched his fists. "That monster! Ruining my life isn't enough for him, but he has to ruin yours, too?"_

_ "Shukaku's not a monster," Megumi shook her head. At her words, Shukaku abruptly stopped trying to pry the gates open, staring at her with his jaw on the floor. _Did she just _defend_ me? To _Gaara?_

_ Her next words shocked him even more. "I've forgiven him, and I think that you should, too. For your own good."_

_ But Gaara wasn't going to excuse Shukaku just like that. "_Forgive_ him?" Gaara repeated incredulously. "After he ruined my life? After he made you spend the past five years alone? How could you forgive him? He killed your parents!"_

_ "Hear his story before you make any judgments, just like what people should do for you, Gaara-kun," Megumi whispered. "They have no idea what you've been through: they just think that you're insane."_

_ Gaara's eyes widened as it hit him. "It's true… I've killed so many people… I really have become a monster…"_

_ "No, no!" Megumi quickly backtracked. "That is Shukaku's fault! Maybe it is a bit too early for you to be able to forgive him, but what I'm saying is that you should at least hear his story and try to understand his point of view."_

_ Gaara took a deep breath. This wasn't easy for him: Shukaku had torn his family and friends away from him. But without even thinking about it, he had done the same thing to other families. Had Shukaku once had a family and friends? Had he once cared about people, like Gaara had?_

_ "Okay," the jinchūriki swallowed his hatred._

_ Shukaku told Gaara everything: not only his own story, but also the things that he had withheld from Gaara about the jinchūriki's life. For some reason, after Megumi had defended him… he felt his hatred towards humans lessen, just a little._

* * *

"I have eight… siblings, I guess you could call them," Shukaku begins. Gaara's eyes widen, shocked that the One-Tails has brothers and sisters. "We were once all one creature: the Ten-Tails. The Ten-Tails is nine times as powerful as me – but a human managed to defeat it once."

"Wow. That dude must've been pretty insane," I comment.

Gaara looks at me weirdly. "Since when did you speak like that?" he asks.

I laugh. "I'm not the weak little crybaby that I was when you met me anymore, Gaara. I guess being alone with this idiot for five years does that to you."

My eyes widen as soon as that last sentence leaves my mouth. Did I just _tease Shukaku_? My happiness about finally being able to talk to Gaara must be getting to my head.

Shukaku seems to think so, too. "What did you just call me?" he demands, his eyes narrowed.

I wave my arms around desperately. "Nothing, nothing at all! Just go on with your story!"

With another glare directed at me, Shukaku continues. "The man who defeated the Ten-Tails, the Sage of the Six Paths, divided the Ten-Tails into nine creatures to split its power. One of these creatures is I. The Sage sent us into the world, telling us that one day, we would find someone who would tell us about the heart and acceptance."

"And that's Megumi-chan, isn't it?" Gaara asks.

My eyes widen. "Me? Why me?" I find it hard to believe that someone like me could teach the tailed beasts like Yashamaru did for Gaara.

"Well, you and Shukaku seem… almost _close_," Gaara says.

I scratch the back of my head and laugh. "That teasing was completely a one-time event."

"It better be," Shukaku mutters.

"Aw, don't be such a tsundere," I pout.

Shukaku's eye twitches. "Someday, I _will_ kill you, brat."

"But you can't," I grin. "Anyways, continue with your story."

Shukaku sighs, but goes on. "But then the Sage died, and he began to turn into just a myth. People began to fear all of us tailed beasts as monsters, and they sealed us inside of humans to use our power. I haven't been completely free for nearly 200 years."

"200 years?" I gasp. "Wow. That's horrible."

"I agree," Shukaku mutters. "So excuse me for wanting to get out."

"You know, maybe you _should_ try asking nicely sometime," I tell him. "I'm sure that if you gained Gaara's trust, he would be willing to let you out."

"It's a bit too late for that, though, isn't it?" Shukaku asks. "Everybody thinks that I'm a monster, and my actions haven't exactly proven them wrong."

"That's okay! We can work on this, slowly but surely!" I encourage. "You and Gaara-kun will gain back the village's trust! And we can start… by canceling this invasion."

"How is that going to gain the village's trust, though?" Gaara asks. "We'd basically be ruining their plans!"

"The village only wants to invade the Leaf to weaken them and steal their clients for missions," Shukaku tells him. "The Land of Wind daimyō cut the Sand's funding, weakening us. As a result, future clients ended up going to the Leaf for ninja. That's what drove your father to seal me inside of you. He planned to use you as a weapon for the Sand."

Gaara's eyes widen. "So he did it for the village?"

Shukaku nods. "Your father isn't as bad of a man as you think he is. He just puts his village before his family: just like a kage is expected to do. He didn't know that sealing Shukaku inside of you while you were still inside of your mother would kill her. He tried to save her, you know. And your mother never hated the village. She loved you, you know, Gaara."

Gaara's hands shake. "But… but Yashamaru said…"

"Yashamaru said that your mother didn't love you to test your emotional stability, to see how well you could control me," Shukaku explains. "He loved you too, but just like the Fourth Kazekage, he put his village before his family."

Gaara stares at him, speechless.

"I didn't tell you all of this before because I thought that if you lost control of your emotions, you would let me out," Shukaku explains. "…You must hate me."

Gaara hesitates for a second, and then says, "Well, I don't exactly appreciate you letting me believe that I was alone all of these years… but I am glad that you decided to tell me eventually."

"I guess it was kind of selfish for me to take away your happiness just because I was unhappy," Shukaku admits to Gaara. "I… I'm sorry."

Gaara's jaw is on the floor now. Did Shukaku just _apologize_ to him?

"I-it's okay," Gaara stutters out.

I grin. After five years of watching Shukaku use Gaara to kill people, it seems that the tailed beast and its host are beginning to mend their relationship. I hope that their forgiveness will extend to humankind in general as well.

Speaking of humanity, we need to stop this invasion. "Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt your heart-to-heart, but there's an invasion going on right now," I remind them. "About what Shukaku was saying, if you two had been able to work together for the Sand from the start, there would have never been any need to invade the Leaf. So I'm sure that they would call off the invasion if you showed them you and Gaara could cooperate with them."

"Then I guess we have to go find the Kazekage," Shukaku says.

Gaara stiffens. Seeing his discomfort at having to speak to his father, I chime in, "I'll talk to him."

Shukaku snorts. "You? The Kazekage doesn't know you, and you're just a kid. _I'll_ talk to him. That'll make an impact."

"Oh, that's a good idea!" I grin. I would have suggested that, except I wasn't sure whether Shukaku would use this as an opportunity to kill Gaara's father, though. But even though he still has his arrogant demeanor, I can tell that he's starting to warm up to us a little.

I smile to myself. I'd woken up this morning dreading having to watch Sasuke get crushed in Shukaku's sand. I would never have expected to be having a conversation with Gaara and Shukaku at the same time, without anyone trying to murder each other. And we're probably about to save many lives by calling off this invasion!

Shukaku and I retreat back inside of Gaara, to make the Leaf ninja stop trying to attack us. Our conversation inside of Gaara's mind had only taken a second in the real world.

The jōnin and ANBU all begin to rush towards the site where they heard that the Kazekage was battling the Hokage. Gaara takes their lead, following them to his father.

But as we approach the battlefield, we realize that something is terribly wrong.

"That's not my father," Gaara whispers.

Shukaku's eyes widen at the face of the figure wearing the Kazekage's hat. "That's…"

"Orochimaru," I finish in horror.

* * *

_"Orochimaru disguised himself as the Kazekage?" Megumi gasped. "Then what happened to the real Kazekage?"_

_ "Orochimaru must have killed him," Shukaku replied._

_ Gaara's eyes widened. _My father's… dead? After all of these years of wanting to kill him myself, just when I finally find it in me to go and talk to him, he turns up dead. But I guess I shouldn't be complaining: I saw Megumi today, and I even talked to Shukaku_…_

_ Gaara was still in shock about everything that the One-Tails had told him. His mother and Yashamaru had _loved_ him._

_But instead of hating Shukaku for keeping that from him for so long… Gaara felt like he _understood_ the tailed beast. Their stories were actually very similar, and Gaara didn't think that he really had a right to criticize Shukaku, after he had done so many horrible things himself. He was amazed at how easily Megumi could forgive. Even though she had watched him murder countless people over the past five years, she was able to see the reason behind his actions and try to help him return to his old self. And Shukaku had even killed her parents, but she had forgiven him and was trying to prove him wrong about humanity._

_Gaara was sure that she was the one who would teach the tailed beasts to love._

_"So what do we do now?" Megumi's voice broke into Gaara's thoughts. "We just leave Orochimaru and the Hokage to fight?"_

_"No way, I want to kill Orochimaru!" Shukaku grinned his usual maniacal grin._

_Gaara sighed. "All right: let's go save the Leaf."_

* * *

**Hahaha Megumi calls Shukaku an idiot and a tsundere (person who doesn't show their emotions) XD Can this day get any better?**

**Review please!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks to Little-Retard, Gerbilfriend, Ashley2228, Dreams-Wishes-Hopes, LITTLE RED FOXX and The Other Fangirl for reviewing!**

**Little-Retard: Power Trio? lol nice. Ahaha please hear me out before you kill me! The ending isn't going to be depressing, it's just not going to be the fairytale ending that some people seem to be expecting :/**

**Gerbilfriend: you have no idea about what?**

**The Other Fangirl: o.o what**

**LITTLE RED FOXX: I am totally going to steal that expression XP**

* * *

I'm not so sure that fighting Orochimaru is a good idea. I mean, Gaara's skill level is amazing for a genin – maybe even for a jōnin – but these are kage-level ninja that we're talking about. We should technically have the Hokage on our side, but I doubt that he'll trust us after the Sand broke the peace treaty and invaded his village.

Gaara begins to cautiously approach the Hokage, but then he's suddenly launched backwards into the air by an invisible force.

"There's some sort of a barrier there!" Shukaku informs us. "Here, I'll seal it up."

"You can seal things?" I ask him.

"You see these markings on me? They're not just for decoration: they're cursed seals," Shukaku tells me. "Using them, I can seal things."

When he finishes explaining, the curse marks on his body start to move. They flow from his paws onto the barrier, until the cover a cubic area in the air. Then they begin to retreat back onto Shukaku's body.

"It's done," he says. "You can go now, Gaara."

We've already caught the attention of Orochimaru and the Hokage by removing the barrier around them. Orochimaru raises his eyebrows as Gaara strides towards him. "Are you going to continue with the plan, Gaara-kun?" he asks. The way that he says Gaara's name gives me the creeps.

"Why would I, after you killed my father?" Gaara demands.

Orochimaru just shrugs. "I thought you hated your father."

"That doesn't matter," Gaara shakes his head. "The point is, you made a deal with him, and then you betrayed him. Well, now it's our turn to betray you."

Gaara makes a hand seal, and suddenly the life-sized form of the One-Tails bursts out. Shukaku takes a swipe at Orochimaru, who dodges his gigantic paw skillfully. Then the man, who reminds me of a snake, bites into his thumb and performs a series of seals. He slams his palm down onto the ground, and two wooden boxes appear. The lids of the boxes swing open to reveal the corpses of two Leaf ninja. At another hand seal from Orochimaru, the Leaf nin open their eyes and step out of their coffins.

The Third Hokage gasps. "It's the First and Second Hokage!"

My eyes widen. The First Hokage is rumoured to be the most powerful ninja in all existence: assuming that the Sage of the Six Paths is just a myth. And the Second must be way up there in skill level as well. This isn't going to be an easy fight.

Shukaku seems to be thinking along the same lines. "Hokage, I'm going to have to ask you to step back a little," he tells the Third.

"Okay," the Hokage complies. I'm surprised, and extremely glad, that he seems to trust us so much. But then, the keyword is: 'seems'. The Hokage might just be waiting for the chance to kill both Orochimaru and us. Honestly, I wouldn't blame him if he were. Orochimaru and the Sand are the ones who attacked his village.

But Gaara, Shukaku and I had nothing to do with the planning of this invasion. I can't just let them die, especially when they finally seem to be giving up on their hate. So I watch the Hokage carefully as Shukaku rears up his head and gathers chakra above his muzzle. Then he blows the enormous ball of chakra towards Orochimaru and the two dead hokage. My jaw drops at how fast such a huge ball can travel. Orochimaru clearly wasn't expecting the high speed of the ball either, and it runs him and the dead hokage over, exploding on contact.

Shukaku shields us all from the blast. He won't get hurt, because he's basically just a huge mass of chakra without a physical body. That's how he can be sealed inside of people.

When Shukaku unwraps his tail from around us, Gaara asks him to retreat back inside of him apprehensively. I can tell that he still doesn't have complete faith in Shukaku: which is perfectly understandable. But I'm going to change that.

And so is Shukaku, it seems. He doesn't even try to extend his period of freedom: his body just begins to shrink until Gaara's emerges through the sand.

The Third Hokage stares at us in shock. Gaara decides to speak up in this moment.

"Hokage-sama, as the Kazekage's son, I offer my sincere apologies for our betrayal of the peace treaty, and… well, I don't know if I'm in the right position to be able to say this… but I'd like to reaffirm the treaty."

To my surprise, the Hokage smiles at Gaara warmly. "I know that you had no part in this, child. I am willing to reaffirm the treaty on the Leaf's part, but it is up to the new Kazekage to do so on the Sand's part." Then the Hokage winks at Gaara. "You know, I think that you would make a good Kazekage."

"_Me_?" Gaara asks, dumbstruck by the Hokage's words. "But I've done so many things wrong…"

"That doesn't matter. All that matters is that you changed," the Hokage tells him.

I nod in agreement. "You took the words right out of my mouth, old man."

* * *

"You're going to let us leave? Just like that?" Kankuro stares at the Hokage in disbelief.

"I have reaffirmed the peace treaty with the Sand on the Leaf's part, and if all goes well then your brother here will do the same on the Sand's part," the Hokage lays his hand on Gaara's head. Seeing his team's incredulous expressions, Gaara says to them, "I'll tell you everything on the way back to the Sand."

After bidding the Hokage farewell, Gaara and his team begin to make their way back to their village. As he promised, Gaara explains everything that happened along the way. At the end of his story, he whispers, "Temari, Kankurō… I'm sorry."

"I-It's okay," his siblings stutter out.

Then Kankurō's curiosity gets the best of him. "Wait, so there's a girl living inside of you?" he asks Gaara.

"Yes. Her name's Megumi," Gaara tells him.

"She's the same girl that you met at the Academy?" Temari asks. Gaara nods. "So she's been watching us without us knowing for the past five years?"

"Yup! It's nice to officially meet you, Temari-nēsan, Kankurō-nīsan!" I come out and say.

"That's not creepy at all," Kankurō mutters.

Temari whacks him on the head. "Be polite!" she hisses. Then she bows slightly to me. "Nice to meet you, Megumi-san." After a glare from her, Kankurō echoes her words.

I laugh. "No need to be polite. Gaara calls me Megumi-chan."

"Really?" Temari gives Gaara a strange look. My red-haired friend glares at me, and then takes his body back over. "Okay, that's enough," he crosses his arms childishly; looking almost… dare I say it… cute?

Kankurō grins. "I like this girl," he says.

* * *

When Gaara arrives at the breakfast table the next morning, his siblings bid him good morning. They're visibly tense, but they don't speed up and try to get out of the room as fast as possible.

A bit of an awkward silence ensues, before Gaara asks me inside of his head, "What do I do now?"

"Maybe ask them something about the Chūnin Exams?" I suggest.

"Okay," Gaara replies, and then returns to the outside world. He clears his throat. "So, um… how did your guys' final matches go during the Chūnin Exams?"

"I won mine," Temari answers.

"Only because your opponent forfeited," Kankurō snickers.

"Hey! I forced him to forfeit by fighting well!" Temari fires back.

"What about you, Kankurō?" Gaara asks his brother, interrupting whatever retort his brother had been about to make.

"I didn't get to fight," Kankurō replies. "Where were you, anyway?"

"Um… I was killing two chūnin…" Gaara turns away ashamedly.

"Oh," Kankurō says awkwardly.

"Ask them when we find out if you guys made it to chūnin," I whisper to Gaara.

"Do you know when we find out if we made it to chūnin?" Gaara asks his siblings.

"They were supposed to tell us before we left, but they never got to finish the exams," Temari explains. Then, seeing the guilty expression on Gaara's face, she quickly adds, "Besides, I don't think that the exams are the Leaf's top priority right now. They should be focused more on rebuilding their village."

"They should start a search for a new hokage soon too, shouldn't they?" Kankurō chimes in. "I mean, the Third is getting kind of old."

"Speaking of which, we need a new Kazekage," Temari says. "Baki-sensei'll fill the post for now, but everyone knows that he's not good enough to be a kage."

Gaara and his siblings are all so blunt. I guess that's to be expected, growing up with the Fourth Kazekage as their father.

None of them seem to be very affected by his death.

* * *

**Review please! ^^**


	11. Chapter 11

**Thanks to The Other Fangirl, Dreams-Wishes-Hopes and Little-Retard for reviewing!**

**The Other Fangirl: I totally agree.**

**Dreams-Wishes-Hopes: Thank you so much!**

**Little-Retard: Thank you! And haha, ok**

* * *

"All right, you guys are done for today. Good job," Baki announces. Temari lets out a huge breath, folds up her fan and sheathes it on her back. Kankurō recovers his puppets with bandages, while Gaara's sand pours back into his gourd. Some of it turns into a cork, which then seals the opening.

"By the way, while we search for a new Kazekage, you three have been tasked with visiting the Academy and teaching there for a day," Baki tells Gaara and his siblings. Gaara's eyes widen, and I frown. The Academy wasn't the friendliest of places to him, and a lot of bad memories are associated with that school. I'm sure that Gaara doesn't want to go through having kids run away from him or call him a monster again.

Temari echoes my thoughts. "Are you okay with that, Gaara?"

"I'll be fine," Gaara shrugs her off. "I just don't know if the students will be okay with it."

Before anyone can reply, a little boy suddenly runs up to my friend. "Are you Gaara?" he asks.

After a slight hesitation, Gaara answers apprehensively, "Yes."

The boy's eyes widen. "I heard that you saved the village from the guy who killed the Kazekage! You're so cool!"

Gaara just stares at him in shock for a moment, and then whispers, "Thank you."

"Ehehe," the boy grins at him, and then runs back to his parents. "Did you see? I got to talk to Gaara!" he announces proudly.

Gaara's team smiles at the scene. "You won't have a problem," Kankurō tells his brother.

* * *

"This is sparring training," Temari announces to the class of Academy students standing before a table of weapons. "Choose the weapon that fits you best from among these."

Suddenly, a girl raises her hand. "What is it?" Temari asks her.

"Um… do we have to choose?" she asks, biting her lip.

"What do you mean?" Kankurō asks her.

"We'll harm others if we use weapons," the girl says. "We might even kill them."

"A weapon is…" Gaara begins. Everyone turns to look at him. But then he falters, and shakes his head. "Never mind, it's nothing."

Temari and Kankurō exchange glances. Then Temari tells the girl, "Missions aren't child's play."

"You'll get yourself killed if you enter the battlefield with that kind of attitude," Kankurō adds.

"S-sorry," the girl ducks her head in embarrassment.

"Look, you angered Gaara because you asked stupid questions," I hear a boy behind the girl tell her. "Now you've done it."

The girl lowers her face even further at his words.

I guess I did get my hopes up too far when the little boy acknowledged Gaara yesterday. When Kankurō tells the class to choose their preferred teacher, the students flock to him and Temari, avoiding Gaara. "My father called Gaara the Sand's ultimate weapon," a boy whispers to his friend. "Yeah, I heard he's so strong that the village will be destroyed if we make him mad," his friend replies. "He's scary, so I'm going to avoid him," another boy says. "Okay, I'll choose Temari-san!" "I'll join Kankurō-san!" a girl declares.

"Gaara, smile, smile," I prompt my friend. "If you keep that sullen look, everyone will be scared and no one will choose you."

Gaara attempts to crack a smile, but it comes out as a weird sort of grimace. I smother my giggles with my hand.

But I don't hide my grin when I hear a voice say, "Um, excuse me," and see a student approaching Gaara.

* * *

_It was the girl who didn't want to use weapons. Gaara was shocked that she chose him over his siblings after that boy had warned her about him._

_"Would you please teach me?" the girl asked him._

_"Are you sure?" he asked._

_"Yes," she replied._

_Temari and Kankurō smiled. Then they directed the students to choose their weapons._

_The children all dashed towards the weapons table and snatched up most of them, leaving only three choices for the hesitant girl._

_"Your name?" Gaara asked the girl._

_"M-Matsuri!" she stuttered._

_"Matsuri, choose your weapon," Gaara told her. The faintest trace of a smile graced his lips, and Megumi's curved upwards as well after she saw it._

_Matsuri stared at the sword on the table, glinting in the desert sun. Images of swords sticking out of her parents' bodies flashed through her mind, and she suddenly felt like throwing up._

_"What's wrong?" Gaara's voice broke into her thoughts._

_Matsuri started, and quickly grabbed a spiked club off of the table._

_"Attack me with that weapon as if you intend to kill me," Gaara directed her._

_"H-Hai!" Matsuri stammered, and tried to swing the club. But it was too heavy for her, and she fell backwards with a shriek._

_"There's a saying, 'ogre with a club',* but it doesn't suit you," Gaara stated. He heard Megumi burst out into laughter inside of his head. _Maybe I should tell jokes more often if they make her laugh_, Gaara thought._

_"Please tell me which weapon I should choose," Matsuri begged him._

_He walked over to the weapons table and examined the remaining choices. He then picked up a jōhyō. "This is called a jōhyō," he explained._

_"Jōhyō?" Matsuri asked._

_Gaara leapt away from her, and began to swing the rope around his head like a lasso. "The sharp blade at the end of the rope is to prevent the enemy from coming too close rather than to attack. And you bind the enemy with the rope." He threw the rope at a pole – just like the kind that Megumi had to throw shuriken at during her Academy days – and the weapon wound around it. Gaara pulled, and it tightened._

_"Practice with it until it becomes a part of you," Gaara instructed Matsuri._

_"Hai!" the girl replied._

* * *

_Matsuri threw the jōhyō at a pole just like she had seen Gaara do, but instead of the rope wrapping around the pole, the tip of the weapon hit it and bounced back. Her eyes widened as she saw it flying towards her. She screamed, and leapt out of the way. The blade lodged in the ground in front of her._

_ Gaara pulled the blade out of the ground and handed it to her. "What's wrong?" he asked._

_ Matsuri bowed her head. "My mother and father were stabbed to death right before my eyes. So that's why I…"_

_ "Why do you wield a weapon?" Gaara asked her. She stared at him uncomprehendingly._

_ "You use them not to hurt others, but to protect them," Gaara explained._

_ Megumi smiled. Gaara had truly changed for the better._

_ The redhead left his student to think about his words. He searched for Temari and Kankurō, wondering where they were._

_ He found them holding a bleeding ninja on the ground. "Gaara, we were just about to go and get you!" Kankurō said._

_ "The sentry ninjas were attacked by some strangers," Temari told Gaara._

_ The dying ninja spoke up. "The people who call themselves the Shiten Shōnin and wield mysterious weapons told me to tell you this: 'We challenge you, the ultimate weapon. If you do not accept our challenge, we will kidnap someone close to you every day and impale them on branches.'"_

_ Gaara's eyes widened. "Matsuri! I left her alone!" He began to sprint towards the place where he had left Matsuri._

_ A wave of horror washed over him when he saw a jōhyō lying on the ground, with its user nowhere in sight._

Matsuri's their first victim_, Gaara thought. He clenched his fists. _I will protect the people close to me no matter what_, he vowed._

* * *

Gaara ran for ten minutes before we finally caught up with the Shiten Shōnin. The only female member stops to fight us, while the rest keep going.

"Shukaku, are you ready for this?" Gaara asks the One-Tails, who scoffs in response. "Hell yeah! Let's kill her, Gaara!"

Gaara rolls his eyes. "Some things never change…"

"Hey, don't forget me!" I pipe up. "Here, just let me out and I'll seal her! Gaara, give me a scroll, would you?"

"But I wanted to kill her," Shukaku sulks. Gaara ignores him and hands me a scroll, and then gives me control over his body.

"I've been looking forward to fighting you, Gaara of the Desert," the woman grins. Then her smile turns into a look of horror as I say, "You won't be fighting him!" and Shukaku's sand shoots out to grab her by the ankles. It pulls her towards me, and I seal her into a scroll.

I guess this is why the Uzumaki clan was so feared. They can just seal their enemies away forever.

"One down," Gaara comments in his monotone.

The next member of the Shiten Shōnin to challenge us is a boy with blue hair. He should know that we're strong opponents from how quickly we defeated his teammate, so he's either much stronger than her, or too arrogant to request help.

It's probably the latter. I have no trouble doing the same thing to him as I did to the woman.

We catch up with the group again. There are only two of them left. The man with Matsuri strapped to his back keeps going, while the man with a tiger-head breastplate turns around to fight us.

I raise Gaara's arm, and sand begins to rush towards the man. But as soon as it makes contact, it breaks apart and falls to the ground.

The man grins. "This armour can absorb chakra. I will suck out all of Shukaku's chakra, and use it to revive the ultimate weapon of _our_ village!"

_So they want the chakra, huh_? I muse. "Then I'll just have to not touch you," I state. I raise Gaara's arms once more, but my friend stops me. "Let me do the fighting," he says. "You save up your chakra for sealing."

"Fine," I sigh. Shukaku grins. "Eager to fight? Glad to see that my habits are rubbing off on you."

"Ew," I tease him. "You go ahead and fight, Gaara. It'll be my pleasure."

Gaara rolls his eyes, and then lifts his arm. More sand empties out of the gourd, but instead of attacking the enemy himself, it wraps around his mace. Gaara swings his hand around, and the sand follows, lifting the enemy off of the ground and whipping him around Gaara's head. Sand then begins to build up underneath Gaara's feet, raising him up high into the air. It's impossible to survive a fall from that height.

That is, unless there's something protecting you. The armour that the enemy is wearing somehow manages to take out the worst of the damage. He picks himself back up off of the ground, and is about to swing his mace back up when suddenly a green ray of light filters into view.

I can tell that it isn't real light – and I'm proven right by the chuckle that the enemy lets out. Suddenly, a water dragon bursts out of the ground and spirals upward into the air, twisting around the pillar that Gaara's standing on. The sand soon becomes saturated with water and crumbles, too heavy to support the structure any longer. Gaara begins to fall through the air.

But the water doesn't affect my shield: I've realized that it's made of something much less tangible than sand. It comes from my dedication to protect my friend.

A soft bed of sand cancels out Gaara's hard landing. Even though he's nearly out of chakra, he manages to get back up. He breaks off the sand from his sand armour, and uses it to create a spear. Then he whips it at the enemy with a speed that I could never hope to match. It pierces straight through the enemy's armour and into his heart before he can react.

"Let's go save your student, Gaara-kun," I say. Gaara gives me a resolute nod, and we resume our chase.

* * *

***A Japanese expression, 'oni ni kanabō', meaning strong and powerful**

**Review please!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey guys, I got a beta! Thanks to Sakura Blossom Dream for editing this story!**

**Thanks to Dreams-Wishes-Hopes, Gerbilfriend and Little-Retard for reviewing!**

**Gerbilfriend: That's okay! And sorry about that, I purposely tried to leave Naruto out of most of the story because I want the main influence on Gaara's life to be Megumi :)**

* * *

We catch up with the man who's holding Matsuri hostage. Gaara tries to take his student back by force, but he's used up all of his sand already. Only my shield works, protecting him from all of the man's attacks with his sword. If only I had some long-range attacks… if only I didn't have to rely on Gaara and Shukaku to do all of the fighting…

I'm so useless. All I can do is watch as the man traps Gaara inside of a metal dome, and begins to suck out his remaining chakra. The only thing saving him from death now is Shukaku's chakra inside of him. Gaara screams out in agony as the man starts to draw out the One-Tails.

Once Shukaku is fully out, the man releases the dome, and unstraps Matsuri from his back. Gaara's student is jolted awake from the hard landing, and scampers to safety. But the enemy doesn't care. Matsuri isn't his true objective.

"Come, ultimate weapon of the Sand," he beckons to the One-Tails. "I shall take your power for my own."

"Megumi, seal me!" Shukaku yells.

My eyes widen. "What – I can't – I'm not good enough to be able to do that yet!"

"Just seal bits of my chakra one by one," Shukaku tells me. Inside of Gaara's head, the enemy can't hear our conversation. I nod slowly. I might be able to do this.

I begin to seal pieces of Shukaku back into Gaara. I'm surprised by how fast the process is. I can seal much larger portions of chakra than I could before. I guess that I actually did improve during those five years when I thought that I wasn't getting anywhere with fighting Shukaku.

Gaara regains himself back as Shukaku disappears. The man grins at him. "So your chakra couldn't sustain Shukaku long enough? What'll you do now?"

"That's not it at all," Gaara replies, and the man is taken aback by the smile on his face. "Now that Matsuri is out of the way, I can do this."

"Do what? You have no more sand left," the man tilts his head to the side curiously.

"It is true that I have none of my own left," Gaara tells him. "But unfortunately for you, we're fighting in a desert. And my name is Gaara of the Desert."

The man's look of confusion changes to horror as the valley itself begins to collapse on him. The rock walls begin to crumble into sand, and it crushes him as Gaara leaps away.

The last thing that we see is Matsuri running towards Gaara before he blacks out.

* * *

"You told me the secret to sealing you," I say to Shukaku. Gaara's state of consciousness doesn't affect ours.

Shukaku sighs. "Yeah, I know. That was a dumb move. I have no idea what came over me then."

I grin at him. "I'm so proud of you," I pretend to wipe a tear off of my cheek.

"Shut up," Shukaku mutters.

* * *

When Gaara opens his eyes again, I see that he's lying on a bed in the Sand hospital. This is a first. Gaara rarely ever gets injured because of my sand shield. When he does, it's usually after Shukaku takes him over. The Kazekage didn't want anyone to know what a 'failure' his son was, and scare the village even more with Gaara's lack of control over the One-Tails. So he always had Yashamaru treat Gaara in the safety of the Kazekage building.

Temari and Kankurō's faces suddenly come into view. "Gaara, you're awake! How are you feeling?" Temari asks him. It makes me super happy to see the worry in her eyes. She really does care about Gaara.

"I'm fine," Gaara sits up. "Is Matsuri?"

"She's fine," Kankurō tells his brother. Then he grins. "Do you like her or something?"

Gaara tilts his head to the side. "Of course I like her, she's my friend. Why do you say it like that?"

Kankurō hits his forehead with his palm. "I meant, do you have a _crush_ on her?"

I laugh at the absurdity of the idea. For some reason, my laugh comes out cold. Shukaku glances at me curiously, but I ignore him.

"What does that feel like?" Gaara asks his brother.

"Aw, Kankurō-chan, our little brother's growing up!" Temari coos teasingly.

"Of course I am," Gaara frowns. "I'm always growing older."

Temari and Kankurō sweatdrop. "Anyways," Temari says, "it's sort of like… when you see them, you get really nervous and start blushing, but you want to get closer to them. You don't want to tell them that you like them though, 'cause it makes things awkward."

"Speaking from personal experience?" Kankurō interrupts with a smirk. Temari's face turns tomato red. "N-no, of course not!" she insists, waving her hands around in the air.

"Then why are you blushing?" Gaara inquires.

"I am not!" Temari crosses her arms and turns away.

"It's that Shikamaru guy, isn't it?" Kankurō asks her.

"Shikamaru?" Gaara asks.

"Yup. You don't let him get too close to our Temari-chan, okay, Gaara?" Kankurō grins.

"I threatened to kill him once," Gaara confesses.

Temari facepalms. "Of course."

"Anyways…" Kankurō awkwardly shifts topics, "So do you like Matsuri or not?"

"From Temari's description… no," Gaara answers.

I feel slightly relieved. But that's just because I wouldn't want to be a third wheel in their relationship… right?

Then Kankurō's next question stuns me. "Well, what about that Megumi girl? I mean, she lives inside of you, so she can see you shower and stuff, right?"

Temari smacks him and yells, "Pervert!" while I stammer, totally caught off guard, "Eh?! N-no! I always close my eyes, I swear! Ask Shukaku!"

"Don't bring me into your shallow human conversations," the One-Tails mutters. But his voice has less venom in it than before.

* * *

Gaara keeps the door to his room open now, unless he's changing or something like that. Right now, he's working on the first homework that he's gotten since his Academy days, assigned to him by Baki. Gaara's kind of behind in academic things like history and math, because for _those_ five years all he cared about was getting stronger to kill more people.

He struggles with a math question that's meant for ten-year-olds. I can't exactly help him, since I was in a lower grade than him in the Academy. So he goes to ask Temari for help.

She explains a whole bunch of things that Gaara seems to be following, but that I can't make heads or tails of. So I just sit back and smile, because this is how a family should be.

I feel strangely lonely all of a sudden, even though I'm trapped in a room with Shukaku, inside of Gaara. But no matter how much I care about them, they're not my family.

I miss my parents. I miss the way that my father would try to teach me ninja techniques, and never gave up on me despite the failure that I was. I miss the conversations that I had with my mother when she walked me home from the Academy every day. And I never even got to say goodbye to them…

But they died for me, so I'm going to live out this precious life that I have to the fullest.

"Temari's the mature one," I suddenly hear Shukaku remark. "She cast aside her fear towards Gaara almost immediately after he changed and started helping him," the One-Tails continues.

"Kankurō does the same – he just does it in a more… prideful way, I guess," I say. "He teases Gaara to try to help him build more relationships."

Shukaku smirks at that. "You were totally jealous when Kankurō teased Gaara about Matsuri, weren't you?"

"W-what?!" I splutter. "I was not!"

The smirk doesn't move from Shukaku's face, which infuriates me. "Well, don't worry. He doesn't like her, so you still have hope. Ignore what Temari said about making things awkward: make a move on him before she does."

I glare at him. "I thought you didn't care to involve yourself in such 'shallow' matters."

"Meh," Shukaku shrugs. "I'll have fun teasing you guys."

"Why is it always somehow about you?" I sweatdrop.

"Thanks for your help, Temari," Gaara's voice interrupts.

"No problem, Gaara," Temari grins at her little brother. "You can ask me for help any time. Oh, and by the way, never ask Kankurō."

"He's always busy with his puppets, so I never do," Gaara replies.

"Good," Temari says, "'cause he'll mess with you on purpose."

Gaara frowns. Seeing that Gaara thought she meant him specifically, Temari quickly backtracks. "He does that to everybody, of course. He just likes to screw around."

"I see," Gaara says in his monotone, but I've known him long enough to be able to recognize when he's hiding his emotions: and this time, it's happiness.

After Temari leaves Gaara's room, I ask him, "Nē, Gaara-kun, can you help me? I didn't understand half of the things that Temari said."

"Uh, sure," Gaara agrees, though his statement sounds more like a question.

"Sorry, I'm stupid," I laugh weakly, remembering how people would always laugh at me in the Academy.

"No you're not," Gaara tells me, surprising me with the intensity in his voice. We stare at each other awkwardly for a moment, until Gaara clears his throat and turns away.

Even though I'm technically not alive, I can feel my heart pounding against my chest. What is this feeling?

Gaara explains, "I… I was just wondering why you would want to study when… well, you're…"

"Dead?" I grin, trying to lighten up the mood, even though just thinking about my body rotting somewhere in the Sand cemetery is making me feel nauseous. "Well, you never know when it might come in handy. I mean, my sealing techniques did."

"Oh," Gaara replies, sounding relieved.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Shukaku smirking as Gaara begins to explain the math concept to me. Though what he's smiling at, I have absolutely no idea.

* * *

**Review please! ^^**


	13. Chapter 13

**Thanks to The Other Fangirl, Dreams-Wishes-Hopes and Little-Retard for reviewing!**

* * *

"I think that you should spend more time with Kankurō," I tell Gaara one day. He's been in Temari's company a lot recently, but like he said before, he never goes to Kankurō for help.

"Won't I just be a bother to him, though?" Gaara asks me. "I mean, he seems so busy all of the time…"

"Meh, he could use a little light in his life! Besides, you're his brother. He won't mind making time for you," I assure Gaara.

"I haven't really been much of a brother to him, though," Gaara sighs.

"Well, you're not going to change anything by not spending time with him," I tell him. "How about you go ask him about his puppets? Then you'll be talking about something that he's interested in."

"Okay," Gaara says. He still has that uncertain tone in his voice, but he begins to walk down the hall towards his brother's room.

"Hey, Kankurō, can I come in?" Gaara asks after knocking on the puppet master's door.

"Yeah, sure," Kankurō replies. "What's up, Gaara?"

"Just wanted to see what you were up to," Gaara shrugs, clearly trying to appear nonchalant. I giggle. He can be so cute sometimes… wait, what am I saying? Ack, something's seriously wrong with me.

* * *

_Gaara wasn't quite sure when it started, but he realized that he was feeling… well, _nervous_ every time he was around a certain girl. He was Gaara of the Desert, though! He was never nervous, not even when battling the Kazekage himself! But for some reason, he got this weird fluttering sensation inside of his stomach whenever he heard her voice inside of his head. But that was just because his siblings had teased him about her, right? He wanted to ask them, but Temari had said that it would make things 'awkward' if he told Megumi about his feelings. He wouldn't be telling her directly, of course, but with her being able to hear every word that he uttered, he might as well be._

_ On the subject of Megumi, tomorrow was her birthday. He wondered what he should do for her. He couldn't really plan one of those 'surprise parties', because she could see everything that he did. And she didn't sleep, because she was dead._

_ But wait… she had told him that Shukaku had knocked her unconscious before. If she could lose consciousness, didn't that mean that she could sleep?_

_ Megumi could only see what Gaara saw, so she didn't see the smile that appeared on his face as he thought of his plan._

* * *

"Hey, Megumi?" Gaara suddenly asks me one day.

"Yeah?" I answer.

"Can you sleep?"

I blink a few times, puzzled by the question. "Um… I've never tried it before… but I guess so, since I can get knocked out."

"You should try it," Gaara says.

"Why?" I ask.

My friend shrugs. "I'm just curious to see if you can. I want to know what it's like without a body."

"Okay," I agree. "But you should try it, too. You haven't slept for, what, like, six years?"

"Tomorrow night," Gaara tells me. "I have… something important to do tonight."

"I see," I reply. I understand now: he's going to do something that he doesn't want me to know about. I don't exactly blame him for wanting privacy – it must be annoying to have me watching over him twenty-four/seven – but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt.

I settle down to try to sleep away the pain. To my delight, I black out almost immediately.

* * *

My nose switches on before my eyes. I smell something heavenly… like flowers…

When I open my eyes, I jerk backwards, startled by the bright white and yellow in my face. After I back up a little, I find that I am indeed looking at flowers. Standing over the bouquet of flowers is my best friend.

"You gave me a daisy once to comfort me," Gaara says, shyly staring at the floor. "I'm just returning the favour, with a little more since it's your birthday."

My jaw drops. So this was what Gaara had wanted to keep a secret from me. And to think that I ever doubted him… a wave of guilt washes over me.

It must have shown on my face, because Gaara asks worriedly, "You don't like it?"

Happy tears begin to stream down my face as I shake my head. "Megumi, are you okay?" Gaara asks, alarmed.

All I can get out between sobs is, "You remembered...!"

Gaara smiles at me, and in his smile I can see a trace of his old, cheerful self. "Happy birthday, Megumi-chan!"

"Gaara-kun, thank you!" I throw my arms around my friend.

Come to think of it, I can repay Gaara for this. It's his birthday tomorrow, and tonight is also the night that he's going to try to sleep…

* * *

Gaara falls asleep immediately, just like me: after all, he hasn't slept for six years straight. I take over his body, planning on talking to Temari and Kankurō about throwing a surprise party for Gaara.

Unfortunately, if I open his eyes, he'll wake up. So I stumble blindly down the hall, trying to find Temari and Kankurō's rooms. I trip and fall on my face once: but I use my sand shield to muffle any noise that my landing would make. Finally, I find Temari's room.

"Temari-nēchan," I shake Temari's body on her bed. She jolts awake. "Gaara?" she asks. "What are you doing here?"

"It's Megumi," I whisper. "Sorry to wake you, but this is my only chance, when Gaara's sleeping…"

"Only chance to what?" Temari inquires.

"Wait a second, let me get Kankurō," I tell her. After dragging a disgruntled Kankurō into Temari's room, I explain, "I was thinking about throwing a surprise party for Gaara's birthday."

"That's a good idea," Temari replies. "His birthday's the 19th, so… wait a second… that's tomorrow!"

"There isn't really enough time to plan much, but I guess something is better than nothing, right?" I say.

"Agreed," Kankurō nods.

"So? What are you thinking about doing for Gaara, Megumi?" Temari asks me. I notice that the Sand Siblings drop honourifics after meeting someone much sooner than most people.

Despite their differences, the Fourth Kazekage's children are all actually quite similar to each other. Gaara's siblings would probably know what he likes better than me.

"I don't really have anything in mind at the moment. I was wondering if you guys had any ideas," I say.

"Um, well, Gaara used to take this teddy bear with him wherever he went," Kankurō tells me, "but I don't think that the new Gaara will enjoy getting a teddy bear from us."

I laugh. "Oh yeah, I remember that. He used to hug his teddy bear and swing… wait… we could get him a swing! He always sits on top of the roof the entire night: a swing would be a nice change of scenery."

"You want us to build a swing in one night?" Temari raises an eyebrow.

"Hey, we can do it," Kankurō encourages her. "We can just take a plank of wood from my puppet workshop, and attach it to a tree with rope. There are plenty of trees to choose from in the Kazekage building garden."

"Okay," Temari replies with a smile. "Let's go make Gaara a birthday present."

* * *

_Gaara didn't think about anything out of the ordinary when he woke up on his birthday. He had all but forgotten about it being his date of birth, and to him, today was no different than any other. But that was about to change._

_ "Morning, Gaara-kun!" Megumi chirped, seeming even more cheerful than usual. "How'd ya sleep?"_

_ "Like a log," Gaara replied. He hadn't had a single dream last night. It was to be expected, having not slept for six years in a row._

_ The Gaara from one year ago would have never believed that, one day, he would be able to sleep with Shukaku there. It shocked even the present Gaara how quickly he had fallen asleep, not even worrying about Shukaku trying to take over. The One-Tails had truly proven himself during the fight with the Shiten Shōnin._

_ Gaara had forgiven Shukaku for ruining his childhood. He'd realized that without the One-Tails, he would never have met Megumi. With her inside of him, he would never go off track again: even if his father hadn't sealed the One-Tails inside of him, there was no guarantee that Gaara wouldn't have become a monster._

_ If Megumi hadn't spoke with him on that day during the Chūnin Exams, Gaara would probably still be a monster. The Leaf would be destroyed – most likely the Sand as well – and Orochimaru would be running loose somewhere and destroying other villages._

_ She probably didn't realize it, but Megumi had saved thousands of lives._

_ "Let's go to the Kazekage garden," the green-haired girl suggested._

_ "Why?" Gaara asked._

_ Megumi grinned. "I want to show you something."_

_ "What is it?" Gaara asked her._

_ "You'll see," Megumi sang._

_ "Okay," Gaara shrugged, and began to make his way towards his father's garden._

_ He had spent countless nights staring over this garden, so he noticed immediately that there was a foreign object present. His eyes widened when he realized that it was a swing._

_ "Happy thirteenth birthday, Gaara-kun!" Megumi clasped her hands together._

_ "Megumi-chan…" Gaara whispered. Then his lips curved upwards into a grin. "Thank you so much!"_

_ Megumi scratched her head sheepishly. "Kankurō and Temari did most of the work. I just had the idea of making a swing. I remember that you always sat on the swing at the Academy, and I thought that you might prefer swinging to sitting on the roof at night. Actually, you probably want to sleep from now on, but I just thought that –"_

_ "I'll use it," Gaara cut her off with a smile. "Every night."_

_ Megumi's eyes widened, and then she grinned. "Okay!"_

_ Then she turned to the One-Tails. "By the way, when's your birthday, Shukaku?" she asked._

_ Shukaku shrugged. "I don't remember. It was two centuries ago."_

_ "Let's make it today, then!" Megumi grinned. "What do you want as a gift?"_

_Shukaku smiled – not an evil grin or smirk, but a genuine smile. "Just someone asking is enough for me."_

* * *

**Aww, Shukaku... :D**

**Review please! ^^**


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